Scientific Inquiry: Steps 1 - 3

A group of students studied how light intensity effects the rate of a cell processes. In the experiment students exposed plants to different light intensities. How the students measure cell process was by the amount of gas produced.

Which of the following is the independent variable in the experiment?

• Volume of gas

• Rate of cell process

• light intensity

• Size of elodea plant

A group of students studied how light intensity effects the rate of cellular processes. In the experiment students exposed plants to different light intensities. How the students measure cell process was by the amount of gas produced. 

Which of the following is the dependent variable in the experiment?

• plant size

• type of plant

• light intensity

• rate of cellular processes

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS1-6

NGSS.MS-LS2-1

Which of the following scientific questions is an example of a BAD scientific question?

• How often do people get library fines?

• How does the amount of sunlight affect a person mood? 

• Does the size of a paper ball affect how far it can be thrown? 

• What is the relationship between the type of fertilizer and how tall plants grow?

Walking home from school you notice 5 different spider webs, each with its own unique design. You look a little closer and notice each spider web has different spiders with differently shaped legs.

Based on these observations what would be the best scientific question from the questions provided?

• Does the design of a spider web affect where the spiders will live? 

• How does the shape of a spider’s leg affect the design of the web it spins?

• Why do different spider leg shapes affect the type of web it spin?

• If the shapes of the spiders are different, then the web designs they spin will be different. 

A group of dentist want to known does drinking to much soda affect the number of cavities that a person gets.

What would be the BEST hypothesis for this question?

• Drinking more soda results in more plaque build up.  

• If a person drinks too much soda, then they will get cavities.

• If a person drinks too much soda, then they will get more plaque build up.

• The reason this is happening is because cavities are bad for your teeth.

Why is it important to have constants in an experiment?

• To ensure that your results are accurate by keeping everything constant but the independent and dependent variable.

• So that you can finish your experiment in a reasonable amount of time

• So that you only have to do one trial in your experiment 

• Because all good scientist to it

 A student wants to test to see if the amount of sunlight that a plants is exposed to affects how much the plant grows. In order to perform the experiment he first needs to find out what his constants should be.

Which of the options provided below would be a GOOD constant?

• wavelengths of sunlight

• How fast the plants grows

• the amount of sunlight received

• the type of plants used

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS1-5

A consumer magazine wanted to find out how fertilizer would affect the height of plants. 

What would the experimental group be for this fertilizer experiment?

• plants grown without fertilizer

• plants grown with the fertilizer

• the type of fertilizer

• the height of the plants

A consumer magazine wanted to find out how fertilizer would affect the height of plants. 

What would the control group be for this fertilizer experiment?

• plants grown without fertilizer

• plants grown with the fertilizer

• the type of fertilizer

• the height of the plants

Tags

NGSS.MS-LS2-1

Dentists in the Baltimore area were debating whether there was a connection between drinking soda and the number of cavities that a person may have. The dentists performed a year-long experiment with 100 patients to see if there was any connection between drinking soda and cavities.

What would the independent variable be in this experiment?